32 Introduction to the New Mainframe: Large-Scale Commercial Computing
interrupted by I/O interrupts, and therefore not all CPs will be interrupted in this
manner.
This creates the potential for a low-priority unit of work to have the use of a CP
even though more important tasks need to run in order to meet their objectives.
The z/OS solution to this is to make use of the external interrupt facility. There are
several reasons for this interrupt occurring, one of which is associated with a
timed event. Before a task is dispatched, a timed event is set up, and if the task
has not lost control before the time period has elapsed, it will do so when the
associated external interrupt occurs.
By using this mechanism, WLM is able to allow low impor ...